Friday in the First Week of Advent, December 3, 2021

Matthew 9:27-31

As Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!” When he entered the house, the blind men approached him and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I can do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they said to him. Then he touched their eyes and said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” And their eyes were opened. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread word of him through all that land.

The Lord Jesus appears as a loving father in this episode of his life, as recounted by St. Matthew.  He tenderly speaks and acts with two men whose conduct, foreseen by the Lord, shows the poignancy of his love.

“As Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him.”  The Lord did not go directly to the blind men as he walked along.  He drew them to him.  Indeed, he wanted to heal them, but he wanted them to ask him first.  In this way, he teaches them and us the necessity of prayer:  we confess our need.  “Son of David, have pity on us!”  They are blind men, begging in the street, completely reliant on the charity of others.  Since they could not see Jesus, someone must have told them that it was he.  Their cry of “Son of David” indicates their belief in him as the Messiah who was to free Israel, but they also know his reputation as a miracle worker.  We can imagine their piteous cries.  They knew that they had this one chance of being cured.  He might never pass this way again.

“When he entered the house, the blind men approached him.”  This was the house in Capernaum, where Peter and Andrew lived, and where Jesus had come to live after leaving Nazareth.  The Lord does not cure the blind men on the street; he does not seem to speak to them at all.  But they rise from their places and, with the help of others, make their way behind him.  The Lord chooses when and where he will speak.  “Do you believe that I can do this?”  Now, this strikes one as odd.  If the blind men had not believed he could help them, they would not have cried out to him.  Of course, Jesus is very much aware of that.  He is carefully walking them through what he is about to do so that they might understand and believe in him.  With his question he is asking them: Who do you believe that I am who can do this for you?  “Yes, Lord.”  They have called him “the Son of David” and now they address him as “Lord”.  To call someone “Lord” is to confess that one is that person’s subject and is under obligation to carry out his commands.

“Then he touched their eyes.”  The Lord has healed people from a distance and has healed them without touching them.  Here, he deliberately touches their eyes, as though to emphasize to the men that it is he who is curing them, and that it is not some accident or some other person in the room.  He also shows a father’s care for his children, touching them like this. We ought to try to imagine the Lord holding our heads in his hands and touching our eyes.  He does this when we consult our conscience, when we struggle to know what to do, asking him for guidance.  If we would trust him more thoroughly and depend less on ourselves to solve our problem, we would feel his hands upon us.  

“Let it be done for you according to your faith.”  The Lord requires faith on our part for healing, either faith for our own cure or for another’s for which we are asking.  We see this, for instance, in the case of the woman with the hemorrhage (cf. Mark 5, 34).  The Lord is teaching that faith opens the way for his power.  He will cure no one against his will.  The one to be cured must desire it and believe that God can do it.  Through faith we throw open the doors of our inmost selves and subdue our pride so that the King of glory may come in (cf. Psalm 24, 7).  The faith of the blind men is far from perfect, but it is sufficient.  How little the Lord actually requires of us!  And what he could do if we had faith the size of a mustard seed!

“And their eyes were opened.”  Not that their eyes had been closed before.  This is a Hebrew idiom for “gaining one’s sight”.  The idiom helps us to understand the dazzling wonder the men felt at receiving the ability to see.  And the very first sight they saw was Jesus.  The idiom of the “opening” of their eyes brings to mind the disbelief and doubt and sin that clog up so many souls.  If there could be one crack in the clog, one little opening, it would allow the whole to be flushed out through grace.

“See that no one knows about this.”  Jesus seems to ask the impossible here.  How could the men not tell about what had happened?  But it is a test.  If they call him “Lord”, then they will carry out his commands.  Do they in fact believe he is their Lord?  “But they went out and spread word of him through all that land.”  They do not.  They believed that he could cure them.  Their faith went no farther.  But the Lord allowed it to be enough for the moment.

We can understand this account as our crying out to the Lord for salvation, his enlightenment of us in baptism, and then our going away and disobeying him.  But the story is not about these blind men recovering their sight.  It is about the Lord Jesus who loves us and does good for us, even dying on the Cross for us, when he knows that so many of us will be ungrateful.  He does not allow our ingratitude stop him from loving us.